Chototel: Pioneering Super-Budget Hotels

While Governments the world over are thrusting private sector for participation in social housing to bridge the gap between the rising urbanisation and looming housing shortage with soaring prices, UK based start-up Chototel; a super budget hotel is a step ahead and will be soon offering near Mumbai with rents starting at Rs.100 per day, the hotel will provide guests with clean, comfortable accommodation and uninterrupted utilities.

Chototel was conceived out of the people’s need; to provide them with dignified housing, as global markets don’t cater to the requirement of people who are not able to find good homes due to huge prices and soaring private rent which indeed has created a greater number of people surviving in substandard housing.

Today, 330 million households worldwide are afflicted by some form of housing poverty. If current trends continue, this figure is predicted to elevate to 440 million households by 2025, or one-third of urban humanity (McKinsey Global Institute, 2014). Access to decent and affordable shelter is very fundamental requirement towards the health and well-being of people according to the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. Yet, cities have trouble with the challenge of accommodating their citizens comfortably or nominally.

Rhea Silva, Founder & CEO, Chototel

Envisioned by a 24 year old social entrepreneur Rhea Silva, Founder & CEO, Chototel says “we are opening up a fresh category of hotels, targeting two completely new market segments: One for the people and small families who prefer to rent and the other for the people struggling to get the affordable accommodation due to the global housing shortage”.

Chototel is uniquely positioned in the niche which rests between super budget hotels and rental housing. “We are opening up a fresh category of hotels, targeting two completely new market segments: One for the people and small families who prefer to rent and the other for the people struggling to get the affordable accommodation due to the global housing shortage”, adds Rhea.

Based on the current global trends in urban migration and income growth, approximately 440 million households – with about 1.6 billion people, which equals to a third of humanity rates would definitely wander by 2025 in search of a good place at reasonable rates. The estimated cost to deal with this challenge is US $9 – $11 trillion. Chototel hopes to take this as an opportunity to capture an important stake and disrupt the way world houses its people.

The start-up is in the process of acquiring land in Chakan, Goa and Gujarat for its next round of projects in India. The company aims to build 100,000 rooms in the next five years along the Mumbai-Pune-Goa corridor. The first Chototel project has already broken ground and the construction is underway in Nagothane an industrial town, 70 kilometres south of Mumbai situated on the new Mumbai-Goa expressway. The project aims to target its accommodations at the large bank of industrial workers, working within a 15-kilometre radius, and also those travelling on the Mumbai-Goa expressway.

The 240 room hotel will welcome its first guests in June 2016. Targeted at nuclear families and industrial workers; each Chototel room can hold 2-4 people, and guests benefit from a clean, safe environment with inexpensive uninterrupted utilities.